Yes, this is a good point—perhaps you could speak of “the dairy industry’s welfare footprint” if you sought to avoid this.
Though I guess people could only support policy change that tried to, for example, reduce flying in favour of travel by train, if they are first aware of the differences in emissions (254g vs 6g per km apparently), rather than just being aware that both release some emissions—and perhaps the idea of carbon footprints helped popularise that there are such big differences (?) But maybe there’s something about the term “footprint” which is too closely tied to individual behaviour, and a better term could be found.
Yes, this is a good point—perhaps you could speak of “the dairy industry’s welfare footprint” if you sought to avoid this.
Though I guess people could only support policy change that tried to, for example, reduce flying in favour of travel by train, if they are first aware of the differences in emissions (254g vs 6g per km apparently), rather than just being aware that both release some emissions—and perhaps the idea of carbon footprints helped popularise that there are such big differences (?)
But maybe there’s something about the term “footprint” which is too closely tied to individual behaviour, and a better term could be found.